A Breath of Winter
by Unanon
Summary: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Preseries. Ned returns home to Winterfell after being fostered in the Vale and, as much as Lyanna has changed, she's still quite the same.


Title: **A Breath of Winter**  
Author: Unanon  
Fandom: George R.R. Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire._  
Pairing: Ned/Lyanna  
Summary: Pre-series. Ned returns home to Winterfell after being fostered in the Vale and, as much as Lyanna has changed, she's still quite the same.  
Warnings: incesty stuff, some bloodplay. Generally mild.

* * *

The summer snow still clings to the most shaded hollows of ground at the edges of the godswood when Ned returns to Winterfell. Robert, riding so close beside him that their legs sometimes bump together, doesn't remark on the lingering evidence of cold in the depths of summer, but Ned can see his friend's eyes skitter over the whiteness hiding in the gloom of the heaviest forest before turning once more toward the road, the sun, his mount – toward anything alive or warm that can dispel the simplest example of the deepest truth of the North.

Winter is coming. Winter always comes again and, in some form or another, winter never truly goes away.

"Look lively there, Robert," Ned encourages warmly. "We're already in our godswood; it isn't much farther now."

"It's been a damned age." Robert grumbles. "Others take this cursed road and Winterfell too; it's been too long since I've had a bed, a hot meal…" he glances at Ned and grins broadly, teeth gleaming through the untrimmed thatch of his beard, "…or a nice soft woman to cushion my nights."

"I can promise you at least two of those this very evening, but not the third." Ned can't help but let a smile curve at the corners of his mouth. "That amenity you'll have to acquire with your own questionable charms."

Robert shoots him a look of mock offense before kicking his heels to spur his horse forward, leaving Ned with a little welcome privacy before their arrival. In truth, as much as Ned is happy to be going home, he is in no real hurry to arrive. It has been years since he has set foot in Winterfell and, even though he has seen his father and Brendan since - at tourneys and when they visited him at the Eyrie- he still feels a disassociation with his place of birth that he hadn't anticipated when he first took the long journey to become Jon Arryn's ward. He had spent some happy years up in Arryn's high castles with Robert, running through cold, austere rooms or daring each other to lean out the Moon Door or spend a night in a sky cell.

Ned inhales deeply and closes his eyes as he slows his horse to a walk. The feel of the air on his face is no different than that of the wind blowing down from Alyssa's Tears at the Eyrie. But then the breeze carries a scent he can't identify, yet one so familiar and forgotten that it makes his heart clench and his breath catch in his throat with a longing he didn't even know he felt. Perhaps it is merely the distant scent of the cookfires of the winter village mingled with the sap of trees freshly felled for firewood, but it matters not. He is home, and suddenly he wishes with all his being that he'd never have to leave again.

With a touch from his heels Ned's mount picks up speed, scattering pebbles along the kingsroad where its iron-bound hooves bite into the soil. But after a few turns Ned is surprised to see Robert's large destrier standing patiently at the edge of the road, its reins casually draped over a low-hanging branch, with its rider nowhere in sight. Ned frowns as he dismounts, but a quick examination of Robert's horse doesn't reveal any signs of foul play. It seems as if Robert has simply walked off into the woods. Cursing under his breath, Ned secures his own horse and follows him.

The temperature is perceptibly cooler the moment Ned enters the woods and he has to pause for a moment for his eyesight to adjust to the gloom beneath the canopy of green. Robert's trail is easy to follow and Ned's footsteps make no sound on the deep loamy carpet of needles. He's been traveling in the woods of the North for days, camping on the forest floor and wading through creeks, but these particular woods have a familiar feel, and the trees themselves are beginning to elicit flashes of memory. He stops beside a large tree trunk and runs his fingers lightly over deep notches cut into the wood. They're scarred over but Ned can see them in his mind fresh and seeping with sap. He remembers using them as handholds for climbing and the memory draws his eye up to where the branches spread, to where he knows a knothole is hidden at the tree's cleft, and he wonders what small childish treasures may still lie within, rotting and forgotten.

Ned knows exactly where he is, and his feet carry him toward the heart tree on their own accord. He hears laughter and splashing and his heart twists with recognition even before he sees them.

Lyanna and Benjen are bathing in the warm waters near the heart tree, just as they always have - just as he imagined them doing during many long nights at the Eyrie, far, always so far, from any weirwood tree. They are playing, and Benjen manages to get the right leverage to dunk his sister. She comes up sputtering, water streaming from her hair and mouth wide in a roar of playful rage. Benjen tries to escape but his squeal of laughter ends in a gurgle as she exacts her revenge.

Ned moves forward, his mouth already open for the joyful greeting rising in his throat, when a hand clamps over his lips and a strong arm pulls him roughly back into the shelter of the thicket. "Be quiet, you fool!" Robert chuckles into Ned's ear. "You'll frighten off the wildlife."

Robert's hand smells of horse and Ned's eyes water for a moment before he slams an elbow into Robert's gut. "That 'wildlife' is not for hunting, you oaf," he hisses, pushing at where Robert is still grasping at him. "That's my sister." He shoots his gasping friend a glare as he shoves him away. "Keep your arrow in your quiver and confine your gawking to serving maids and tavern wenches."

Three strides carry Ned into the clearing and his shout of greeting is met with eyes momentarily wide before warming into welcome. Benjen moves first, churning the clear water into mud at the bank where he climbs out, and Lyanna follows, her feet sliding in the shallows in her haste. They're in Ned's arms in an instant, soaking wet and smiling, and their words overlapping as they both try to tell him everything about the years he's missed in as little time as possible. It isn't until Ned begins tickling them playfully that he realizes that they're both as naked as their names. What's more, Lyanna is no longer the girl he remembers, flat-chested with ribs like Maggy's scrubbing board. She's clearly a maiden flowered, perhaps even for some time already, and with a start Ned remembers Robert.

"Where are your clothes?" he asks, pulling his traveling cloak from his shoulders to wrap around his sister. "We must get you both dressed and back to the castle."

"On the other bank. I'll get them!" Benjen says excitedly before doing just that, white legs painted with mud nearly up to his knees. "I'll just be a moment!"

"Good." Ned says and turns to Lyanna. She has his cloak draped across one shoulder and with her free arm she still clutches his where it circles her waist. When his eyes meet hers her smile broadens again and suddenly she's kissing him full on the mouth, lips firm and cool against his with a determined, lingering press before drawing back to look at him once more.

"If that's the way you say hello at Winterfell, I'd like a welcome too!" Robert's voice booms from the edge of the clearing. "I may just make the North my home if that's the common form of greeting."

Lyanna stiffens in Ned's arms and he clears his throat before explaining. "Come meet Robert Barratheon, Lyanna, he is my friend, foster brother and traveling companion."

"That's right, little sister!" Robert spreads his arms wide and steps forward as if expecting Lyanna to run into them. "Come give us a kiss!"

"Oh, I don't think so," the teasing tone of Lyanna's voice is familiar to Ned and he can't help but to smile at the memories it awakens. "I reserve those sorts of kisses for my true brothers."

"A pity," Robert banters, "I'll just have to sample your other sorts of kisses then."

Ned is surprised at Lyanna's smirk. The girl in his memory would have responded hotly with a stream of curses and threats, perhaps even rushed over toward her antagonist and kicked him in the shins. But her reaction is knowing, flirtatious even, and it changes his awareness of her even more than the alterations of her body had a moment before.

When Benjen returns with their clothing, Ned eyes Robert sternly and shields Lyanna behind a cloak as she dresses. He knows how easily his friend is intrigued by women, especially the young and pretty ones, but during the short walk to Winterfell and the festivities that follow Robert seems distracted, almost docile in his attentions toward Lyanna. He is still jovial and brash, but Ned senses that somehow in the short period of their acquaintance, Lyanna has managed to bewitch Robert entirely.

Ned doesn't like it one bit, but he can't explain why. It's a question that gnaws at him as he prepares for bed in his old, familiar room. Even though it is a possibility he hadn't considered before, Robert and Lyanna would be a good match – Stark and Barratheon. He and Robert would be brothers in truth then, but the thought gives Ned no comfort as he slips into a fitful sleep.

Ned awakens when his blanket is lifted and a cool form curves itself into his back. Even in the rapidly fading haze of sleep he knows it isn't Robert, but it takes a moment for him to remember that he is at Winterfell.

"Lyanna. Go back to your room."

"I don't think so," she says, her voice muffled from where her face is pressing into his back. "I'd much rather be here with you."

"Nevertheless, you need to go." He takes her hand and begins unwinding her arm from where it has curled around his waist. "You're not supposed to be here. Besides," he grins and turns toward her as she sits up; he can just make out her form in the moonlight from the window, "I'm sure you must have a maid or someone who sleeps in your room to make sure you're a good girl."

"Sometimes," she responds softly. "And sometime Benjen comes to visit me, but not always."

"It's nice that he still does that, even if he is nearly ten."

"He comes for my sake, not his. He knows how much I missed you after you left."

"Oh." Ned suddenly feels uncomfortable and even though he knows she can't see much of his face in the darkness he looks away in embarrassment. Their hands are still between them, fingers loosely entwined on the coverlet, and he squeezes them a little before withdrawing his hand. The bed shifts as Lyanna sits up straighter.

"I could always go down the hall to where your impressive hairy friend is quartered." Her voice seems brittle even though it is still quiet. "Would you prefer that?"

"Don't be stupid."

"You're the one being stupid, Ned," she pouts, drawing one knee up to encircle with her arms. "I just wanted...I...I missed you."

"We're no longer children, Lyanna," Ned sighs, patting her knee awkwardly in the semi-darkness. It feels sharp beneath the fabric of her shift, too bony, as if her flesh hasn't quite caught up with her most recent growth spurt. "You can't simply crawl into my bed whenever you like anymore."

"I don't see why not!" she objects hotly. "Who is going to care? Old Nan?" She laughs a little then, the moonlight catching the cords of her throat and the edge of her jawline as her head falls back, and Ned's throat tightens. "I know what you're thinking, Ned. You've always been as transparent as ice to me." She moves to sit behind him and slides her arms around his waist, bringing her hands up until her fingertips rest on the fluttering of his heart. Her breath is warm against his back when she speaks, like the foehn that heralds the spring. "I've been coming to your bed for as long as I have memory, and I'm not about to stop simply because of a pair of bumps on my chest."

"That's not the only reason." Ned replies haltingly, far more keenly aware of those two bumps pressing into his back than he'd like to admit.

"Then why?" Her voice hitches a little in her throat and her next words are nearly a whisper. "Don't you care for me anymore, Ned?" she asks. "I've been so lonely without you here. You can't imagine."

But he can. "I've been away a long time, Lyanna. Things have changed," Ned says, even though having her whispering to him in his bed feels as familiar as his own skin.

"No." She tightens her arms then and her legs move to tighten too where they rest at his hips. "You've just forgotten is all." Her fingertip finds a narrow scar on his chest and she traces it with her fingernail once, twice, harder. "Blood of my blood, remember?" She presses her cheek against his back and scratches him again. "I still have my scar."

"I imagine it would be impossible to get rid of." Ned murmurs, keeping his tone deliberately light. The moment feels as if it could shatter like glass if he moves, or even if he breathes too heavily. His mind replays the memory of their childish pact: the wolfish smile she'd worn when she'd drawn his knife, the nick of the blade soothed by the feel of her small mouth sucking against his chest, the salty taste when he licked his own blood from her lips and then the flavor of hers as he licked her wound. The images send a thrill through him and he suppresses a shudder. Had he really been that foolish? That young?

Her breath is at his ear then, and she slides one hand down his stomach as she asks "Do you want to feel it?" It takes him a moment to understand she means her scar.

Ned grabs the path of her hand but his body still responds to her touch in ways that he's unprepared for. "No," he almost gasps, but couple deep breaths strengthen his resolve. "No Lyanna. You need to leave my bed. Immediately."

Ned honestly expects her to obey, for her arms to loosen their hold and for her to docilely slide from his bed and return to her chambers without incident, without a word, to leave him to his confusion and misery. Instead, Lyanna's teeth sink into the flesh of his shoulder so deeply they draw blood.

Years of training have made him swift, have built up lean lengths of muscle beneath his flesh that he hadn't possessed when he last lived at Winterfell. Ned's response is instinctive, immediate, and he has her pinned underneath him faster than he can think of the wisdom of that position. Their breathing is ragged and hurried in the darkness, but neither of them speak. A warm, thin trickle of blood runs down Ned's side and one part of his mind wonders if it will stain the coverlet. But then Lyanna's hand is at the back of his neck and her mouth finds his and all thought fades against the feel of her mouth, the taste of his blood on her tongue, and the sharpness of her teeth against his lips. He's dimly aware of her leg lifting to curl around his, of her hands fisting in his hair, but too much of his world has narrowed down to their lips, their brushing of tongues, and the heady vibrations from the sounds Lyanna is making in the back of her throat.

Ned's hand comes up to touch her breast, fingers squirming to fit between their bodies, before he is struck by an awareness of what he's doing. He rolls off her, panting heavily, with the shame of what he'd just done heating his flesh. Lyanna doesn't move or speak for a long time, but when she does her voice is steadier than Ned thinks it has any right to be.

"Why did you stop?" The audacity of the question is so typically Lyanna that Ned almost smiles. "I didn't want you to stop."

"It's not right, Lyanna." Ned replies. "You're my _sister_."

"Is that the only reason?"

Ned considers lying for a moment, but she'd know. "Yes."

"Good." She rolls over and leans on his chest. Even in the dark Ned knows how her eyes look, grey and penetrating and bolder than they have any right to be. "We'll just have to be careful then."

"It isn't going to be like that, Lyanna. I won't let it."

"You'll do what I want; you always have."

"Not in this." Ned swallows hard as her hair falls around his face, blocking even the dimmest light from the moon with its darkness. Her lips brush his lightly, teasingly, and he doesn't turn away.

"Yes." Lyanna says, and Ned imagines her voice echoing across endless fields of ice, as strong as Valyrian steel and as eternal as winter. "You will."

* * *

_ fin_


End file.
